Wild Chimpanzee Moms Teach Youngsters to Use Tools: A FirstAnimal Stories from All-Creatures.org

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To document that teaching was actually happening, Musgrave and her
colleagues "used video to capture examples of wild chimpanzee mothers
transferring specialized termite-gathering tools to less-skilled, immature
chimpanzees. These transfers, which are costly to tool donors but beneficial
to tool recipients, meet the scientific criteria for teaching in wild apes.
We're also told, "In this study, chimpanzee mothers both anticipated the
youngsters' need for a tool and devised strategies to reduce the effort
necessary to provide them."

Image by aby_sams, Flickr.com

Chimpanzees and many other nonhuman animals (animals) are quite adept at
making and using various sorts of tools (scholarly essays can be found
here). However, while there are data that show that individuals learn to
make and to use tools by watching others do so, and many researchers have
suggested that older individuals actually teach youngsters to make and use
tools, compelling data haven't been collected for wild chimpanzees. Research
has shown that New Caledonian crows, who are renowned for their ability to
make and use complex tools, teach youngsters to make tools in what are
called "tool schools" (please see "Crows and tools: Calling someone a
birdbrain can be a compliment" and "Clever New Caledonian crows go to
parents' tool school"). These crows are renowned for making the most complex
tools in the animal kingdom except for humans.

Transferring termite-fishing probes is actually teaching because "they
occur in a learnerís presence, are costly to the teacher, and improve the
learnerís performance."

Based on a research paper published by Washington University's Stephanie
Musgrave and her colleagues titled "Tool transfers are a form of teaching
among chimpanzees," we now know that teaching occurs in wild chimpanzees
living in the Goualougo Triangle in the Republic of Congo. The abstract for
this essay that is available online reads:

Teaching is a form of high-fidelity social learning that promotes human
cumulative culture. Although recently documented in several nonhuman
animals, teaching is rare among primates. In this study, we show that wild
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in the Goualougo Triangle teach
tool skills by providing learners with termite fishing probes.Tool donors
experienced significant reductions in tool use and feeding, while tool
recipients significantly increased their tool use and feeding after tool
transfers. These transfers meet functional criteria for teaching: they occur
in a learnerís presence, are costly to the teacher, and improve the
learnerís performance. Donors also showed sophisticated cognitive strategies
that effectively buffered them against potential costs. Teaching is
predicted when less costly learning mechanisms are insufficient. Given that
these chimpanzees manufacture sophisticated, brush-tipped fishing probes
from specific raw materials, teaching in this population may relate to the
complexity of these termite-gathering tasks.

A popular account of the groundbreaking study called "Wild chimpanzee
mothers teach young to use tools" summarizes this discovery (other media
accounts can be seen here). Here we read: "The first documented evidence of
wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools has been
captured by video cameras set to record chimpanzee tool-using activity at
termite mounds in the Nouabalť-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo,
according to new research from anthropologists."

To document that teaching was actually happening, Musgrave and her
colleagues "used video to capture examples of wild chimpanzee mothers
transferring specialized termite-gathering tools to less-skilled, immature
chimpanzees. These transfers, which are costly to tool donors but beneficial
to tool recipients, meet the scientific criteria for teaching in wild apes.
We're also told, "In this study, chimpanzee mothers both anticipated the
youngsters' need for a tool and devised strategies to reduce the effort
necessary to provide them."

This is a very exciting discovery and I look forward to more comparative
studies to learn about the distribution of actual teaching among other
animals. Researchers apply strict criteria for calling an activity
"teaching," and this study of wild chimpanzees fulfills them.

Marc Bekoffís latest books are Jasperís Story: Saving Moon Bears
(with Jill Robinson), Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for
Compassionate Conservation, Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed:
The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions,
Friendship, and Conservation, Rewilding Our Hearts: Building
Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence, and The Jane Effect:
Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson). The Animalsí
Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with
Jessica Pierce) will be published in early 2017.

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